1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a text parsing system and method, and in particular, to a system and method for applying standardized markings to legal textual materials, particularly statutes and contracts, to improve the readability and facilitate the understanding of same.
2. Description of Related Art
Legal texts, particularly statutes (including treaties, rules, regulations, contracts, agreements, and other relationship-governing documents, whether promulgated within or outside the United States) and contracts are notoriously difficult to read. These texts are often the product of negotiation and compromise, so they may be composed hastily, by persons who do not write particularly well, or composed over an extended period of time in which numerous additional terms, conditions, exceptions, etc. are added and revised. In particular, many legal documents include lengthy, complex, compound sentences. Often, a single sentence may contain hundreds of words. The complexity and structure of such legal documents can, if not understood accurately, cause misunderstandings, errors and misinterpretations of intent, which can result in serious legal consequences for the reader.
Thus, in an effort to correctly understand the intent of legal language, readers often read and re-read the documents many times. That is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and frustrating. A single statute or other legal document may be read millions of times by hundreds of thousands of lawyers, judges, law students, and lay persons. The reader may desire to apply a statute to a real or hypothetical case or situation, or simply to gain an understanding of the material. In any event, readers spend substantial, valuable time parsing and attempting to make sense of legal documents. Each reading begins anew with the bare, unmarked text of the statute or contract. The reader often marks up the document in an effort to parse and understand the material during reading. In the case of readers in the legal profession, billions of dollars of time are wasted as each reader repeats similar steps in individually parsing the statute or contract. Such personalized marked-up versions are typically marked ineffectively and in manners understandable only to the readers who marked them. Readers who wish to visually enhance legal documents must each prepare their own versions.
Some drafters and publishers of statutes and contracts have taken steps to try to facilitate the reading of statutory sentences and other legal language by dividing complex sentences or provisions into sections, subsections, and sub-subsections. Each is typically a separate paragraph. That is, a single sentence is divided into several paragraphs. Further, drafters and publishers may indent subsections and double-indentation of sub-subsections, etc., to visually emphasize the differences among them. Captions may be placed in boldface. Drafters may number or letter sections, subsections, and sub-subsections for organizational purposes, and place those numbers and letters in parentheses and/or boldface. While these techniques may provide a somewhat clearer organization of the language of statutes and contracts, nevertheless, they fall far short of solving the problem. Complex legal documents remain difficult to read and understand.
U.S Patent Application No. 2007/0010993 entitled “Method and System for the Automatic Recognition of Deceptive Language” discloses a method for parsing transcribed legal documents such as sworn testimony or depositions in which “deception indicator tags” are inserted that indicate deception in the statement, based on key words, a “part-of-speech” tag, or a phrase of interest. By indicating probable deception, Bachenko makes the statement easier for an investigator to review.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,313,513 entitled “Method for Editing and Enhancing Readability of Authored Documents” describes a method for editing documents which involves scanning a sentence to check for occurrences of each of a plurality of signs and applying sign-dependent logic to the sentence to assess whether the sentence includes unnecessary text and phrases that can be deleted or text that can be improved.
GB 2,433,403 entitled “Displaying Selected Phrases in a Translated Text,” teaches a method for parsing and editing text translated between two languages. A part of a first text may be distinguished (e.g., highlighted or underlined) from the rest of the text, which causes the corresponding part of a second translated text to also be distinguished from the rest of the second text.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,683,611 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Preparing Customized Reading Material” describes a method of producing reading materials in which the portion of a story associated with various reading characters is displayed in a different color, indicia, or representation so that each reader in a group can read the parts of specific characters throughout the book and easily follow along.
Accordingly, a system and method for improving the readability and comprehension of legal documents, particularly statutes and contracts, in an effective and efficient manner, without altering the meaning or intent of the language, is highly desirable.